The New York State payroll database
Alain Kalyeros, Will Brown and David Paterson. Which one of these NY State employees takes home the biggest paycheck?
The Empire Center, a think tank, launched an online database today called SeeThroughNY. The database includes info about contracts and spending, but probably the most interesting info -- in a voyeuristic and nosy way -- is a complete listing of the salaries of the 200,000+ state employees. Yep, everyone from the Governor on down is in there.
So, we admit, we looked. Here are a few things we turned up...
David Paterson makes $179,000, which probably isn't news. But did you know that 11 other people in his office make $175,000 or more a year. They might want to think about, what's the phrase these days... doing more with less.
Judith Kaye, New York's top judge, makes $156,000 a year. She's been pushing the legislature to increase pay for the state's judges.
Andrew Cuomo makes $151,000 a year as the attorney general.
As has often been reported, Alain Kalyeros is UAlbany's highest-paid employee. The NanoTech emperor makes $675,800 -- that's more than twice as much as the next person, interim president George Philip, who pulls in $280,000. The next person on the list, at $268,800, is Paulette McCormick, the director of the Gen*NY*Sis Center for Excellence in Cancer Genomics. (Yes, it really is spelled that way.)
Will Brown, UAlbany's basketball coach, makes $215,800. That's not bad for a guy who has a losing record (91-108) during his time at the school.
Find anything interesting? Spill. We'd love to hear about it.
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Comments
Stay tuned until the updated version of this comes out with overtime and bonuses. The figures will be quite different.
... said Melinda on Aug 1, 2008 at 12:22 AM | link
I agree that highly-paid employees' salary must be disclosed.
But what's about other 200,000 ordinary people?
Isn't it too much of privacy invasion?
... said Lu on Aug 1, 2008 at 12:52 PM | link
As the daughter of a career civil servant I can say this pretty accurately: part of the job means giving up a certain amount of your privacy. I remember being asked to leave restaurants my father's office fined for vilations. And I remember news reporters calling the house. Working for the state means that your salary is part of public record. Sorry, that's just how a transparent government is supposed to work.
My issue with this is that many of those ordinary people still make better than their non-government counterparts and it might be construed to cut salaries. Which would be hard since most NYS employees are unionized, but in a recession or hard economic times, people have tried to break unions.
... said EllieB on Aug 1, 2008 at 2:59 PM | link
While this is interesting information, I'm not much for sharing my salary information, nor do I ask for others', so I don't really like the fact that "everyman" can be browsed. If they had a specific "search" mechanism, I may feel better, but as it is, it lists everyone right out there with no effort. *yeah I looked, I was curious what they listed for me - which is wrong actually* :)
... said Kari on Aug 1, 2008 at 3:34 PM | link
I, for one, being a state employee was never told that my salary would be subject to public viewing, let alone blasted over the internet... When civil service was instituted, the internet didn't even exist. I think it is a shame that my name and salary can be looked up by anybody without even the hint of an explanation as to "why" they want to know! In this age of identity theft and security, I believe that this is hypocritical that this information is just left out there for anyone, and everyone to view. I believe that elected officials should have to disclose their salaries; for the mere fact that they were elected, not the common everyday worker that was hired-NOT voted for... I cannot believe all the people that are so happy that our salaries are being displayed so that they can try to find out where all the money is going!!!! They can't wait for the updated version with overtime and bonuses. Get a life! These people are the same people that would flip out, if anybody was to get hold of what they make and blast it all over the computer. What regular people throw in our faces all the time is that they are taxpayers!!!! What they fail to remember is that state workers are taxpayers too! We do not work for another country. We work in the United States of America and my salary SHOULD be none of your business...
... said Joe M on Aug 19, 2008 at 9:12 PM | link